A PREMIUM TIMES investigation has exposed a massive referral kickback scheme showing how the country’s top diagnostic service providers, medical doctors and hospitals “steal billions of naira” yearly from unsuspecting patients who pay for healthcare out-of-pocket.
During the 20-month undercover investigation, a PREMIUM TIMES journalist posing as a doctor referred several persons to leading diagnostic centres for medical tests.
In a statement, Idris Akinbajo, managing editor of PREMIUM TIMES, said the organisation covered the costs of the tests as well as funded the patients’ transportation to the laboratories.
“Our findings are shocking and disturbing. Almost all the labs paid our reporter kickbacks of between 10 per cent and 20 percent of the cost of each test conducted. None of them tried to verify if the reporter was indeed a doctor as he claimed,” he said.
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“One medical laboratory service provider even gives doctors loyalty tokens for every referral sent to it, which doctors can use to purchase telephone recharge cards, utility bills, spa, and vacations.
“The loyal tokens also qualify doctors to obtain car loans and mortgages backed by the diagnostic firm.
“This fraudulent kickback scheme does not only contravene extant regulations, it also places an additional financial burden on sick Nigerians 90 percent of who pay for medical expenses out of pocket.
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“We hope that relevant authorities will act swiftly to halt this bribery that is clearly overburdening patients and endangering health care in our country. The series will run this week.”
4 comments
very good investigation by premium , this same useless doctors demands money from government from time to time, other media houses should help Nigerians and investigate in social evil public servants are doing to innocent Nigerians
Could you be kind to send the name of the diagnostic centre you referred patients to, other centres you uncovered And more evidence. Its not enough to indict other centres when you have only visited one centre.
This report is too shallow, disappointing for a report from Premium times. You should publish with names and addresses. You claim a reporter posed as a Doctor, in what hospital?
We write stuff without verification because the Nigerian populace is gullible.
Did you find out if the tests were necessary in patient management? Did you find out if the referring hospitals had the capacity to run those tests but yet patients were referred to these lab facilities? Did you find out the terms for which the so called kick backs were given?
Were the prices of these services hiked just so the Doctors can get their kick backs?
These and lots of questions need be answered before you can justify this post
This is a very nice move but this is not how to do a research? Making unverified claims. The names of the laboratories used as test samples should be mentioned with their locations. The type of tests conducted should be listed with their prices.